A potential disaster was avoided when a 23-year-old pilot successfully landed a small airplane on the Naples Grande's Golf Course.

"Looked up and there it was just a couple hundred yards away from us," said Supervisor Scott McCoy, who was on the course as the plane came down.

"He went straight down our number 1 fairway and landed real softly, it was a real controlled landing."

Deputies said the pilot successfully flew from Fort Lauderdale to Naples earlier that morning on a cross-country training flight. He took off from the Naples airport around 12:30 p.m.

Once up in the air, the pilot noticed the RPM was fluctuating between 1,000 and 2,500, which means trouble, according to Naples Flight Instructor Rex Gasteiger

"One thousand is not enough to keep an airplane in flight," he said.

The pilot told the tower he wasn't able to make it back and that he was going to have to go for an emergency landing. He aimed for the fairway and was successful.

Gasteiger said the pilot did everything right.

"He only has one chance, so he has to pick the aim point. He has to get the airspeed where its supposed to be, can't be too fast, can't be too slow, and he has to shoot for an aim point and assuming he picked a long enough area, then hopefully he doesn't hit anything."

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